Hero Pilot Lands Safely Through Giant Hail

Stunning footage out of Turkey shows a Ukrainian commercial pilot saving the lives of his entire flight while his plane was being smashed with huge hailstones.

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The Airbus A320, captained by Alexander Akopov and owned by Turkish company Atlasglobal, was ferrying 121 passengers and 6 crew from Istanbul to Erkan, Cyprus. And then, at around 4,200 feet up, the Airbus started getting hammered with golf ball-sized hailstones. Apokov made the decision that the flight was impossible and decided to return to Istanbul's Atatürk Airport.

The hailstones had destroyed any visibility from the cockpit, Akopov was forced to perform an "instruments only" landing. Using instruments from his flight panel and radio transmissions from the airport's tower, Akopov was able to save everyone. An employee at the airport described what happened on Facebook, comparing the hail to "chicken eggs."